The Revenant of Thraxton Hall

CHAPTER 30 A REFLECTION NEVER DIES

“I’m afraid Mister Greaves has passed,” Henry Sidgwick said.

“How is Lady Thraxton?” Wilde asked.

“Understandably traumatized. She is resting in her rooms. My wife Eleanor is at her bedside.” Sidgwick’s bloodshot eyes turned to Conan Doyle. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to look in on her, Doctor Doyle.”

“Yes. I would be most happy to do so.”

When he entered Lady Thraxton’s rooms, the young medium was lying atop her bed, still dressed in her black séance robes. Eleanor Sidgwick sat in a chair pulled close to the bedside, holding the younger woman’s hand.

Conan Doyle strode over to the bed and looked down on her.

Her eyes roved his face questioningly.

“What has become of Seamus?” she asked in a ruined voice.

Conan Doyle rocked on his feet, reluctant to add more distress to the young woman. “He has come to justice… by his own actions.”

She thought a moment and then asked, “And Mrs. Kragan?”

Conan Doyle cleared his throat. “I’m afraid she, too, has come to grief.”

Hope Thraxton covered her mouth with a hand, eyes welling with tears.

She turned her head, and lay staring in distracted silence at the far wall.

Conan Doyle paused a moment, looking down at that lovely face, his eyes tracing the slender line of her jaw to the crescent-moon-shaped birthmark at the corner of her full lips. Then he tore his gaze away, breathed a sigh, and turned to leave. As he walked to the door, the portrait of the young girl in the blue dress once again captured his eye. As he examined it at close range, his spine stiffened. He drew out a fountain pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and looked about the desk for a piece of writing paper. He flipped open a red leather stationery box. It held a neat stack of the distinctive notepaper that bore the phoenix watermark. He took a sheet and sketched the crescent moon birthmark on it:

Then he returned to the bedside again, and briefly examined Hope’s face, comparing it to his sketch. She bore the identical birthmark. He left the lady’s chambers a moment later, his face calm and composed, while in his brain, a lightning storm raged.

“Ah, there you are, Arthur.”

Wilde strode across the polished marble of the entrance hall to where Conan Doyle was staring up at the portrait of Mariah Thraxton. “Arthur,” he repeated, touching his friend’s elbow, “are you quite well?”

Conan Doyle turned a grave face to his friend. “When first we arrived at Thraxton Hall, I was immediately struck by this portrait.”

“I concede that it is well executed. Especially for its time.”

“More than that: it has a strange quality to it, almost as if it were alive. When I scrutinized it a second time, in the company of Madame Zhozhovsky, she pointed out a detail that now seems strangely anomalous.”

“Strange? In what way?”

“Look closely at the birthmark on Mariah’s Thraxton’s cheek. It is in the shape of a crescent moon. The scrying mirror she holds in her hand reflects her face, and the crescent moon birthmark. Do you see that?”

Wilde’s brown eyes narrowed as he scoured the portrait. “Yes, yes I believe I see what you’re referring to.”

“How much do you remember from your geometry lessons?”

“I told you I was never much for mathematics.”

“Axes of symmetry?”

Frown lines wrinkled Wilde’s brow. “The term vaguely rings a bell. I’m sorry if I’m being a bit lead-witted, Arthur, but what exactly does all this mean?”

“It means I now understand why Lord Edmund Thraxton feared mirrors.”

Conan Doyle turned abruptly on his heel and set off toward the parlor. “Come, Oscar.”

Wilde hurried to catch up and fell in step. “Where are we going?”

“To arm ourselves with something capable of breaking glass.”

Wilde grabbed his friend’s sleeve and snatched him to a halt. “I don’t understand. Whatever for?”

Conan Doyle’s face clouded over with intent. “We must find every last mirror in the house… and destroy it.”

A few minutes later, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde stepped inside the mirror maze, both armed with brass pokers. Faced with a multiplicity of reflections, it was hard not to flinch at a sudden movement. The reflected glow of their lamps, bounced from mirror to mirror, transformed the room into a vault of light.

Wilde said, “Now what?”

Conan Doyle pulled a piece of notepaper from his pocket and unfolded it. He held it up to show Wilde. “This is a sketch of Lady Thraxton’s birthmark. It is in the shape of a crescent moon. Notice that the ‘horns’ of the moon are pointing to the left, indicating a waxing moon.”

He turned to face the large cheval mirror and held up the note before it. “Now look at the sketch reflected in the mirror.”

Wilde’s eyes flickered over the image in the glass. At first he seemed nonplussed, but then a spark flashed in his eyes and his full mouth tightened. “In the mirror, the image is reversed: the waning moon becomes a waxing moon!”

“When Mariah Thraxton lay dying, shot twice by her husband, she called for a servant to fetch her the scrying mirror. It captured her reflection and, as Madame Zhozhovsky remarked: a reflection never dies.”

“Which explains Lord Thraxton’s abhorrence of mirrors?”

“The birthmark is hereditary; all the Thraxton women have it. Strangely, in the entrance hall portrait, the birthmark on Mariah’s face is of a waning crescent moon, while the image reflected in the scrying mirror is of a waxing crescent moon.”

“That’s odd.”

“More than odd, unnatural. When I examined the portrait closer, I realized that the entire thing is mirror-reversed. Something happened to that portrait when Mariah died. Transformed it. I believe that, through her dark magic, Mariah has endured as a spectral entity, moving from mirror to mirror.”

“That is quite fantastical.”

“Yes, and that is why we must destroy every last mirror in the house.”

“Oh, dear! Must we? Smashing a mirror brings seven years bad luck.”

“I’m afraid we have many more than one to break.”

“I shall regret this,” Wilde said. “I know I shall.” He backed off several paces and nodded to the large cheval mirror. “You’re the luckiest, old fellow. You go first.”

Conan Doyle raised the brass poker and swung it full force into the cheval mirror, shattering it into jagged daggers. The two of them moved about the room swinging left and right, so that the crash of glass was deafening.

“Seven years bad luck,” Wilde moaned as he smashed a mirror. “Fourteen years bad luck,” he added as Conan Doyle smashed another. Wilde smashed a third. “Twenty-one years bad luck.” The orgy of smashing continued until their feet slipped and skidded on ankle-deep shards of broken glass. Suddenly Wilde cried out, “Stop! Stop!”

Conan Doyle froze, his arm raised. “What is it, Oscar?”

“My mathematics cannot keep up. I make it two hundred and forty-five years of bad luck. Surely we can stop now?”

Conan Doyle scanned the room. Not a single mirror remained intact, save for one, which he now reached into the hip pocket of his tweed jacket and drew out: the scrying mirror. For a moment, he studied the obsidian disk, seeing his own inverted reflection bowled in its concave surface. As he gazed, the glass fogged with swirling clouds that coalesced into an image — the scowling face of Mariah Thraxton. He dropped the mirror as if it were red hot, raised the poker above his head, and brought it crashing down into the middle of the glass: Wa-chunk. Mariah’s image vanished as the onyx surface starred over in a spiderweb of opaque white cracks — an eye for gazing through time forever blinded. Then he scattered its fragments across the room with a vicious kick.

“Two hundred and fifty-one years bad luck,” Wilde moaned. “I may never leave the house again.”

“I’m afraid we’re not done,” Conan Doyle said.

“Good Lord, no!” Wilde moaned, wiping his sweating brow with a lace handkerchief. “Surely not a single mirror can remain in this wretched house!”

“Not a mirror, but one remaining image of Mariah Thraxton: the portrait in the entrance hall. I believe it holds a strange power. And as long as it exists, I fear the house will forever be under her curse.”